CAPTION: Etching after J-F-J Saly, Premier Suite de Vases antiques d'après Saly, et autres, Paris, 1746, Courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the Council, 1921-6-478

A PAIR OF VICTORIAN SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS FROM THE VORONTSOV-DASHKOV SERVICE

MARK OF JOHN MORTIMER AND JOHN SAMUEL HUNT, LONDON, 1841; AFTER A DESIGN BY JACQUES-FRANÇOIS-JOSEPH SALY, PROBABLY MODELED BY EDWARD HODGES BAILY

Details

A PAIR OF VICTORIAN SILVER-GILT WINE COOLERS FROM THE VORONTSOV-DASHKOV SERVICE
MARK OF JOHN MORTIMER AND JOHN SAMUEL HUNT, LONDON, 1841; AFTER A DESIGN BY JACQUES-FRANÇOIS-JOSEPH SALY, PROBABLY MODELED BY EDWARD HODGES BAILY
Each formed as a shell, on a rockwork and seaweed shaped circular base, the cooler supported by three twintailed tritons with outstretched arms, each base with applied arms, each marked on base, tail and eight nuts, each stamped on base MORTIMER & HUNT 610, and engraved No. 1 No. 0610, 192 " 0 and No. 9 193 " 10
14½ in. (37 cm.) high; 383 oz. 10 dwt. (11932 gr.)
The arms are those of Vorontzov-Dashkov (2)

Provenance

Count Ivan Iliaronovich Vorontsov-Dashkov (1790-1854) and his wife Aleksandra Kirilovna née Naryshkina (1817-1896)

Literature

A. Phillips and J. Sloane, Exhibition catalogue, Antiquity Revisited: English and French Silver-Gilt, London, 1997, p. 88, no. 22.

Exhibited

New York, Christie's, Antiquity Revisited: English and French Silver-Gilt from the Collection of Audrey Love, September 1997

Lot Essay

The original design source for these wine coolers is Jacques-François-Joseph Saly's Suite de Vases, a popular book of etchings dated 1746. A later engraving after Saly was part of a design source book belonging to Storr and Mortimer.

The Tritons forming the stem are reminiscent of earlier pieces made in the workshops of Paul Storr and Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, where John Flaxman, Edward Hodges Baily, and William Theed all worked as designers. It is likely, however, that the designer of these coolers is E. Hodges Baily as he left Rundell's along with Storr in 1820 and worked successfully for Storr, Storr and Mortimer, and Mortimer and Hunt.

A third and identical wine cooler was sold as part of the Hilmar Reksten Collection, Christie's London, May 22, 1991, lot 9.

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